I recently had the privilege of interviewing Brian Park, the founder of Nabee Socks, who ran a successful Kickstarter campaign and raised $12,741 with a $10,000 fundraising goal. Brian Park and Marsha Battee are now competing in the George Washington University Business Plan Competition, using their crowdfunding traction to demonstrate a promising product marketplace.
Although the $12,741 raised is not in league with crowdfunding projects that have raised millions of dollars and received significant media attention, it is a strong example of how everyday professionals can use Kickstarter to raise a realistic amount of seed money to jumpstart their product idea.
Here are some tips Brian put together to help the average professional run a successful Kickstarter campaign (with a few of my own additions from speaking with 50+ crowdfunders).
1. Promote your product to smaller blogs
You should focus on blogs that have 5-25,000 monthly visitors, as they more likely to respond and support your Kickstarter campaign. In addition, their audience is extremely focused and they are likely to work harder to spread the word. You can check out blogs’ size at www.compete.com
Write an e-mail template to contact blogs before launching your Kickstarter campaign, but leave room to personalize each e-mail so the recipient doesn’t feel like they are getting spammed. Make it easy for blogs to cover you by making a simple “press kit” with pictures of your products, logo, and a headshot. Try to have them in both high resolution and low resolution formats. Post your blog coverage to direct traffic to the article as a thanks for the support and post to LinkedIn Groups, Google Groups, and Facebook Groups.
2. Study your Kickstarter analytics
You need to be constantly reviewing your Kickstarter analytics to see where the greatest number of pledges are coming from. In the same way that a business owner keeps an eagle eye on their financials, regularly check your stats and draw conclusions.
More than 50% of our sales came from the Kickstarter “Design” and “Popular” pages. However, if you see a lot of sales coming from a blog or your campaign’s Facebook account, focus on promoting those and figure out why they are successful and apply them to other channels. Also, don’t be shy about asking other people to review your data. They may be able to draw conclusions that you are missing.
Remember, just like selling a product or promoting an article, all good things come with volume. The more people that you reach out to, the more people you talk with, and the more places you leave your footprint through forums, comments, and social media networks, the more channels you will leave for people to discover your project.
You can also check out Kicktraq.com for more analytics.
3. Incentivize the influencers
In every industry there are the companies and individuals that influence how consumers make purchasing decisions and how they direct their attention. Make it your job to locate these influencers.
As was mentioned previously, smaller blogs can be a great source of traffic. They may not be willing to write a feature if you do not have a compelling story, but likely they will be willing to tweet out your project for free or minimal cost.
It can be difficult to gain the attention of larger influencers, however, Kickstarter analytics allow you to see which websites pledges are coming from and how much people are spending. This could be a great way to set up an informal affiliate program as part of your marketing budget.
Put yourself in their shoes. If you have a concentrated network that a certain publisher wants to reach, maybe you can agree to signup your friends or advertise their services in exchange for an interview. Get creative! As long as you are benefitting them, more often than not they will listen.
4. Be thoughtful with your rewards and research your expenses!
Always offer something of value for each of your rewards. Also, don’t be afraid to charge your expected retail price. You don’t need to offer a discount to attract backers.
Do a thorough cost of goods analysis of your product to ensure your Kickstarter goal and pledges will be able to cover your manufacturing, freight, warehousing, shipping, and numerous general expenses that can be easily overlooked before they are incurred. Find your business partners before you start your campaign to get an accurate estimate of expenses and delivery time.
5. Stay in touch with your backers
Fill in your Kickstarter FAQ section with questions you get often. It will help to cut down on e-mails, but I’ve found that many people do not read the Kickstarter and receive all their information from the video. Respond promptly to comments!
Sometimes you can receive comments & complaints because backers did not read your Kickstarter. To help avoid this, make your Kickstarter page short, in plain language, and use bullet points when possible.
Many male backers did not know that our Men’s Socks only came in one color despite it being mentioned on our Kickstarter page. Similarly, people who were not familiar with Kickstarter expected their socks to arrive shortly after pledging. This led to a good number of dropped pledges.
To avoid this, place important information at the top of your Kickstarter page in bold letters and in a short, compact format. Similarly, include important information in your Kickstarter video; try to not rely on your Kickstarter page.
